Purpose

What is my purpose?

This reverie is the result of a dream fragment, fueled by leaving "The Bishop's Wife" on the TV streaming as I was waking up.  Those of you who may not be familiar, this is an old Christmas movie in which Cary Grant plays an angel, sent in response to a prayer by a Bishop played by David Niven.  The wife's role is played by Loretta Young.  (It was remade into "The Preacher's Wife" starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston in 1996.)

I usually watch this old black and white classic at least once during a holiday season.  This morning as I was starting to stir, a scene toward the end where the angel tells the others that they will not remember that an angel gave them thoughts, or even that he was there.

This took me dreamily down the roles one plays in life.  We may start out as children envisioning ourselves with large roles on the world stage, making the world a better place.  But very few of us ever get placed in such a position.  Some of us grow to loathe the very idea of that kind of attention.

However, we all influence those with whom we come into contact:  co-workers, family members, friends, whether we like the idea or not.  We are just living our lives, but our attitudes, our efforts, the way we approach living our lives *do* touch the lives of others.  If we are kind, if we are hard-working, if we add a sense of humor to a difficult situation (remembering kindly, of course), if we lend a hand, anticipate a need, we create ripples in the lives of others.

It is not our job to live the lives of others.  But a word of encouragement is never awry.  You never know who might need one, so distribute those words liberally!

So what is my purpose?  To encourage!

Daily happenings

We have sunshine this afternoon, and mild temperatures by January standards.  It's 39℉ out there.  The Prisoner is holding a party on the deck for one of the cheekiest of the cats who come over as visitors.  

Nowadays, this skittish kitty even lets me open the door and take his portrait!  I wonder who his human family is?

Reading progress:  it looks as though the book I will likely finish first of the three is Fast. Feast. Repeat. by Gin Stephens.  I am in the "Feast" section now, and so far, no surprises.  All things I've learned over my many decades of weight management followed by my athletic years.  I used to have on my Spark page, that no one diet program was the solution for me.  Some interesting references are made in the book to fairly recent research into bio-individuality, which is a formal way of saying the same thing.

A diet profile that works for me may NOT work for you, and vice versa.  So the IF lifestyle allows you to listen to your body and use whatever style of eating works best for YOUR body.

Calorie counting is out the window.  Eating until 80% full the food you find delicious and nutritious is in.  There are no "bad" foods but there may be foods that you feel bad (as in body feels bad) after eating, and you need to pay attention to your body when it says so.

Like I said, no surprises.

Intermittent Fasting is not a free pass to "eat as much as you can stuff in during your feeding window".  

That's about it in my corner of the world for Thursday.

Life is good.  Spark on!  📑📗📖✨💖